Who Spots the Spotters?

Started: 2006-08-26 22:05:09

Submitted: 2006-08-26 22:14:52

Visibility: World-readable

Last Tuesday evening (22 August 2006), I left the customer's office in
El Segundo, California at 1915, after an exciting day of trying (and
failing) to reproduce a problem. I headed west along Imperial Highway to
a low bluff overlooking LAX where the city of El Segundo was kind enough
to build a parklet for professional and amateur plane spotters alike. I
brought my shiny D50 for the occasion.

It was dusk as I pulled up to the parklet. Mere seconds after stepping
out of my rental car, I spotted a
giant
Lufthansa 747 taking off from the nearest runway. My camera was
ready.

The parklet was crowded with families, couples, and two plane spotters
with cameras and lenses
far
more expensive than mine. As the light faded, I photographed planes
taking off and taxiing. I talked to Tim, one of the plane spotters, who
seemed to be able to take photos of planes professionally. We compared
notes about planes, spotting, airports, and the price of housing around
Denver.

The photos I took that evening are available
here.
(You'll notice a sexy new feature available on the photos I take with my
new camera: They're much higher resolution than my old camera, so
they're available at higher resolutions. At the moment, each smaller
size is generated and cached as needed, so if you're the first person to
view a specific photo at a specific resolution, it may take a bit longer
to load.)